


you're going to have to relocate the covert

by aiden_ng



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Holding Hands, Identity Issues, M/M, Queer Themes, Self-Worth Issues, a lot of diaspora feelings, author soapbox: parental love is not possessive and nuclear family is a fucked-up ideal, din searches for the armourer and accidentally collects a husband along the way, din's completely unintentional self-realisation journey to MAKING his own clan, hmmm. queer ethics, luke is a supporting character in the din djarin saga (but still a Very Good Boy)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiden_ng/pseuds/aiden_ng
Summary: ‘This is the Way,’ Din says aloud to the empty cavern. He feels—or he seems to hear—his kin and his vanished forebears echoing the words back to him, ghosts in the walls around him, all the dead and the scattered and the not-forgotten. He walks with them, these watchful invisible companions, on the way of the Mandalore.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker, implied din/cobb vanth, implied fennec/bo-katan (offscreen)
Comments: 58
Kudos: 919





	1. The Clan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [figs_on_high](https://archiveofourown.org/users/figs_on_high/gifts).



Greef Karga gapes at him. ‘You gave the kid away?’

‘I did what was best for the kid.’ Din sits down heavily at the bar. Greef signals for a pint of spotchka, but waits in silence for Din to collect his thoughts. ‘I didn’t know his name was Grogu.’

Din hitches a ride from Nevarro to Tatooine and practises his Tusken sign language. With Cobb Vanth’s help, by Creed he sends Bo-Katan a medical kit for her injuries. She sends it back with thanks—she says Axe Woves already has supplies—and a small purse of Calamari Flan for his trouble. Din’s distaste for Mon Calamari grows every day, but he keeps the cash. Goodness knows he needs it.

He sleeps in the street until too many would-be thieves die early deaths. The irritating Mythrol trips over Din on his way back from the cantina, and Cara drags Din into town by the ear (figuratively). He stays for some time with Greef and Cara, who are kindly and honourable hosts. But they don’t sing the songs of a Thousand Tears. They don’t know the Creed. They have their own tragedies, their private losses, that he cannot share.

He takes the New Republic’s reward for bringing in Moff Gideon. He uses the money to buy a new ship and spends several days taping the piece of junk together. He takes one bounty-hunting job after another, pays for food, pays for fuel. Still the cockpit feels empty and cold. Now that he’s tasted companionship, he doesn’t want to let it go.

When he feels he is ready he goes back to the old covert. The Armourer is long gone, as he knew she would be. The tunnels are silent, relatively clean, and still secure. There’s a cache of non-perishable rations, which Din unlocks with a secret code known only to Mandalorians. He checks that the food is still edible and leaves it intact, reserved for some unknown next person who may need it more than him.

The pile of helmets, which seemed so horrifically tall when Din saw it, has disappeared. From this fact Din knows that the Armourer finished salvaging the remains. She fulfilled her responsibility, just as he did, and then she left to find a new home in the hostile universe. For she too must survive. This is the Way.

‘This is the Way,’ Din says aloud to the empty cavern. He feels—or he seems to hear—his kin and his vanished forebears echoing the words back to him, ghosts in the walls around him, all the dead and the scattered and the not-forgotten. He walks with them, these watchful invisible companions, on the way of the Mandalore.

He doesn’t know their faces; of course not. But he remembers their names. He lights a small flare at the place where their helmets once lay, and leaves before the flame burns out.

* * *

He can’t stay in the abandoned covert. He can’t live underground. Perhaps some other group of refugees will pass through, and find safety in the shadows where Mandalorians once defied their pursuers.

He follows Fennec and Boba Fett to take down a few mob bosses, because Fennec tells him he looks like a lost puppy. Din doesn’t know how Fennec can tell what he looks like; perhaps he’s more readable than he thought. When he tells them about the Darksaber, Fett laughs so hard that Fennec has to slap his back.

‘Okay,’ says Din, befuddled. He pours Fett another drink from the Grogu-sized bottle of spotchka Fennec keeps on her at all times. ‘I thought you were just being… well.’ He doesn’t want to say _rude_. He’s standing in Fett’s own palace, after all, so it seems uncouth to sass him. ‘You know. By calling her princess.’

‘Oh, no. Princess is an accurate title for her _current_ status.’ Fett raps one fist against the arm of his throne with hearty satisfaction. ‘As is Mand’alor, for you.’

‘Please don’t,’ Din says.

Fennec is as subtle and shrewd as Bo-Katan herself. Their brows and lips curve in the same precise fashion. Archly, Fennec announces, ‘I’ll go with you to see Bo-Katan. She and I may have unfinished business.’

Fett gives a disapproving grunt, though he doesn’t object. Din suspects this _unfinished business_ may be along the lines of his own history with Xi’an, or his brief encounter with Cobb Vanth. Din has not _done business_ with nearly as many people as some might think, but he never denies the claims. Apparently, having slept with a Mandalorian gives mercenaries street cred.

(Omera was different. She didn’t play the game.)

At the port he parts ways with Fennec, who enjoys sniping pirates and (understandably) wants to meet with Bo-Katan alone. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see Fennec again. At least not on Trask. They don’t owe each other any more favours, but Din is beginning to realise that the bonds of debt and service do not define all his relationships.

* * *

Bo-Katan has a majestic profile, proud and striking. Nose, jawline, hair. You’d follow her into war. To the death, gladly.

Din is no longer looking for someone to follow. She has her story, powerful enough to span the universe, and he has his own—the size of a child’s fist.

He puts the Darksaber on the table between them and waits for her to strike him. He has no quarrel with Bo-Katan, but they share enough honour and mutual respect that he’ll put up a decent show.

‘I will not fight you, brother,’ Bo-Katan says. ‘We Mandalorians have spent enough time fighting each other.’

He doesn’t know what to say.

‘Sit down,’ she tells him.

He sits.

Bo-Katan speaks of the planet that lives in her memories, her dreams. She explains to him that she was once Mand’alor. Din doesn’t doubt her, nor the truth of her quest. Her certainty gives her purpose. Her voice, when she recalls their lost glories, runs rich and thick like rivers of liquid gold.

He listens politely. He can appreciate the rage in her, the self-righteous wrath of a leader who knows what her people have lost. Din doesn’t know all that she knows. He keeps learning of new shatterings and ruptures in their history, new atrocities to mourn, drop by agonising drop in the bottomless ocean of the past.

‘I’d like you to join our cause,’ Bo-Katan says, ‘but whether you fight for it or not, you will be welcome on my planet when I am ruler of Mandalore.’ She leans forward, her jaw tight with intense belief, her eyes incandescent. ‘We’ll figure out what to do about the Darksaber. First I’m going to reclaim our home, the home which was taken from us. And I’d like you at home with me. I swear to you now, as I have sworn countless times to others, that I will _bring us home_.’

He wonders if he is made Mandalorian by his lack of a home.

* * *

He dreams of Grogu. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Grogu comes to him in his thoughts. Din doesn’t have Force powers, so perhaps he can’t communicate with Grogu that way. But in his dream Grogu is there, still very small and bright-eyed, watching him with an expression of utter contentment. One tiny hand is holding on to Din’s boot tightly. The other, curled into a protective fist, hides something that Din thinks might be the beginnings of a lightsaber.

‘Is this it?’ Din asks. He feels irreversibly saddened and he doesn’t know why—he completed the Armourer’s quest, he did what he was supposed to do. He means: _Is it over? Have you changed for good?_ ‘Are you a Jedi now?’

Grogu opens his fist to reveal the small metal ball cupped in his palm. In Din’s dream, he says, ‘I am a foundling, like my father before me.’

* * *

Din tracks down the Jedi.

‘I thought you’d be harder to find,’ is the first thing that comes out of Din’s mouth when he steps off his ship on a foreign planet.

‘I thought you’d be here earlier,’ says the Jedi.

* * *

A very aggressive mini-Jedi demands to know what Din is doing at their temple. The full-grown Jedi attempts to placate him but can’t hide his own consternation. Din, feeling unbearably out of place, looks around for something to do with his hands. The kid stomps off in a huff, but their tiff’s already gathered a crowd and Din accidentally defuses the tension by giving some children their ball back.

He is immediately mobbed by small Jedi of all ages and species and made to catch and return any number of identical rattan balls. Some of them have gotten the idea that Din can breathe fire, which isn’t completely accurate. While being pelted with various missiles, he wanders further down the sandy path towards the temple and tries not to squash any Force equipment.

The big Jedi has been watching all this from a safe distance, seemingly relieved to have another grown-up target diverting some firepower for once. When Din’s exasperation begins to show, the adult swoops in to rescue him and corrals the young Jedi back to… to wherever they came from.

‘I’ll tell Grogu you’re here,’ says the adult Jedi, pinning Din to the spot with something like Grogu’s bright, steady gaze. ‘Wait here, please. We won’t be long.’ As he brushes past Din he adds, ‘My sister’s a diplomat; I think you’d like her.’

As soon as Grogu appears nestled in a fold of the Jedi’s cape, Din forgets everything else in the galaxy. Some latent part of him flickers to life and _yearns_ and is filled as he takes the kid into his arms, bringing him close to his chest.

‘Hey, hey. It’s good to see you too, pal.’ The baby coos at him. Din has to fight the urge to coo back; he hasn’t talked to many lifeforms in his new cockpit. ‘You been minding your manners?’ Din tries to recall what little he saw of the school on Nevarro before he snatched the kid back, blue macarons and all. He doesn’t see any teacher droids here. ‘You been… doing your homework?’

‘He’s making progress,’ the Jedi interjects with a sort of benign all-encompassing pleasure. Din supposes that might be a yes. Grogu scrabbles with three little nails at Din’s breastplate and snuggles up to his shoulder. Din—tear-stricken all of a sudden—lifts the kid to eye level so he can gently bump their foreheads together.

This planet’s nothing like Nevarro. He carries the baby to look at some interesting alien trees. The suns are beginning to go down, however, and Din barely makes it as far as the muddy frog pond before Grogu begins to whimper. Din pats his pockets; he doesn’t carry any snacks. He doesn’t eat a lot himself. He hopes this reddish planet is more fertile than it looks.

‘Sorry, I know you’re hungry,’ Din tells the kid. To the Jedi: ‘Hey, can you bring him a frog?’

The Jedi blinks a couple of times. ‘Sure.’

‘Thank you.’ Din’s busy looking at the child, checking his ears and his cheerful little pulse, tucking in a stray corner of his well-fitted robe. Grogu whines. ‘Please hurry. He likes them alive, by the way.’

The Jedi pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘I will painlessly kill the frog. Deal?’

Din smiles behind his visor. ‘Deal.’

With great care and a little suspicion, Din inspects the frog which arrives eventually. It’s dead, but decent. At least the kid seems to like it, even if it doesn’t wiggle when he chews.

‘Thank you,’ Din tells the Jedi again, even more sincerely. They both watch a cooing Grogu slurp the last frog leg into his mouth. ‘I think he likes to play with his food.’

‘Don’t we all,’ replies the Jedi in a resigned tone which makes Din glance at him sharply.

‘Don’t let him eat anybody’s eggs.’

‘Right.’ The Jedi gives himself a little shake as if to clear his head, and then abruptly puts out his hand. ‘My name’s Luke.’

Puzzled, Din takes the proffered hand. ‘Din Djarin.’

‘I know,’ Luke responds with an oddly long sigh, but Din doesn’t have the time or energy to parse that.

* * *

Grogu sits in Din’s hip pouch and babbles. Luke takes Din in the direction of fuel and shelter, accompanied by an inoffensive but very talkative astro droid. Din eyes it warily. ‘Does your… um, is your R2 always this noisy?’

The astromech screeches at him. Din doesn’t speak its language, but he gets a pretty good idea of the general tone. Luke raises his eyes to the heavens.

‘You have _no_ idea.’

‘I knew an IG once,’ Din offers, since the man seems friendly enough. Serenely, Luke waits for Din to explain what IGs are. ‘It was a hunter. Later, a nurse.’

Luke snorts, then pats the R2 with clear affection. ‘This one makes a decent babysitter. I wouldn’t trust him with _nursing_ , though.’ The thing promptly turns its beeping indignation on him. ‘Okay! Okay! Sorry.’

While the droid clatters and fusses over Din’s transport, Luke stands with his hands tucked into his robe sleeves and gently questions Din. He asks about the Guild, about the Imperial doctor, about the whistling birds and the tiny shackles. He says he has learned all this from Grogu but wants to hear it from Din’s own lips. He doesn’t talk about himself.

‘I reunited him with his own kind.’ Din looks at him, a tentative enquiry. ‘By Creed, he is in your care.’

‘Yes,’ Luke says. ‘He’s under my protection. That does not sever your bond with him. In fact, it could make your bond stronger. Now you can live your own life in safety, and in time he will master his abilities.’

‘So he’s protected?’ Din leans forward, straining for reassurance. ‘In the future?’

Luke hesitates; he won’t lie, even to a desperate man. ‘Yes and no. When you learn to wield the power of the Force, you are both hunter and prey.’ His eyes flicker to the side for a brief, almost-imperceptible moment. ‘It’s not a life without danger.’

Din hopes very much that Grogu won’t sound as cryptic as other Jedi when he starts to talk. ‘Will he be _safe_?’ he presses, and, when Luke nods: ‘Will he be happy?’

‘I can’t promise happiness,’ Luke says. ‘But I can promise he will not be alone.’

It’s enough.

Din holds this conviction in his mind long enough to absorb it, and comes back to the present just in time to catch Luke watching him. ‘What is it?’

Luke regards Din with those ridiculous doe eyes. He doesn’t look particularly shocked or delighted; everything about his pleasure is muted, like an old wound receiving fresh balm. ‘You impress me,’ he says at last. ‘All this for the child, and you never insisted on keeping him.’

‘He chose his own path on the Seeing Stone,’ says Din in bewilderment. Frankly, the thought of abandoning his quest never occurred to him. ‘I honour that choice.’

‘You love without desiring to possess that which you love,’ Luke murmurs, and then blinks as if he’s also startled by the absolutely baffling complexity of what he just said. ‘That’s, um… that’s very Jedi.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Din tells him honestly.

Luke hides a smile. Well, he doesn’t hide it, not properly. His eyes crinkle too much at the corners. ‘That’s fine.’

‘Don’t hesitate to use a firm voice if he eats something he’s not supposed to,’ Din says. ‘I know it hurts to say no, but it’s for his own good. If he has an octopus in his chowder, make sure it doesn’t try to eat _him_. The day he actually does as he’s told, I’ll give up bounty hunting. Just make him spit out whatever’s in his mouth if it looks alive. Though it’s great you’re training him to eat dead—hey, could you use your powers to wiggle the frog?’

Luke gazes at Din for an uncomfortably long moment. When he finally speaks, it’s in a very complicated-sounding voice.

‘I will do what you ask,’ Luke declares with a surprising amount of emotion for such a casual, half-joking request. And then—and then he launches himself forward and gives Din a hug, for some reason.

Din accepts this with bemused tolerance. No one really wants to touch a man in full beskar armour. Perhaps it seems less intimidating to someone who can move things with their mind.

‘There’s an ex-Imperial base offworld, not too far from here,’ Din ventures. He always responds to generosity in kind. ‘I found out that some of the… the Imps, the stormtroopers who wiped out my covert, they dispersed from Nevarro and the surviving troopers migrated to this sector. I’m hoping they can tell me if any Mandalorians escaped. I could use someone with your abilities.’

Luke looks off to the side for an instant. ‘I can’t leave the little ones alone,’ he says. ‘But if you can wait two days, my sister Leia will be here, and then I can go with you. She’s strong; you’ll come to trust her as I do.’

If Luke trusts this Leia person, Din instinctively does too. He hopes he’s not turning into Peli, who volunteered him as the world’s worst taxi service after talking to some lady for ten minutes.

Then Grogu coughs, giggles as though he recognises the name, and vomits up a small quantity of blue liquid. Din sighs, and Luke turns with a swirl of his black cape to fetch the kid some water. Meanwhile Din uses his cape to wipe the baby’s face. Luke does not, and his outfit remains immaculate.

When Luke hands over a canteen of water, Din turns his attention to making the kid sip properly. This way, he doesn’t need to look Luke directly in the eye as he describes the Armourer. ‘She’s the only Mandalorian I know to have survived the attack.’

‘And you’re the only one _she_ knows,’ says Luke. Tucking his hands back into the sleeves of his robe, he looks profoundly content. ‘Don’t be afraid. We will reunite you with your Armourer.’

Din doesn’t know who _we_ is. He had a covert; he had a _we_ once, and now it’s just him. He is not as wise as the Armourer. The Armourer wouldn’t feel lost like he does. He can hear her voice even now—slow but elegant, immovable as beskar. Their secrecy is their survival. Their survival is their strength.

Their strength was once in their numbers.

He asks Luke: ‘You _want_ to help me?’

‘Why not?’

Din looks at the ground. He can’t imagine why not. He just isn’t used to getting anything for free.

As though he’s sensed Din’s uncertainty, Luke lifts his cape and shows Din the metal hilt-thing hanging at his waist. To make its significance clear, he extends the vibrant green blade. Somehow he doesn’t do this casually; he’s not showing off. He draws his lightsaber with calm reverence, like the weapon is part of his religion.

Din has to turn away. If he looks too long, he’ll be lost. ‘Tell you what, you take the kid back,’ he says through his reluctance. ‘I assume he’s got a soft bed here. I’ll sleep on the ship tonight.’

‘Wait.’ Luke grabs Din’s wrist. His sleeve slips up and he’s not wearing a glove, and in the green glow of the lightsaber reflecting off beskar, Din sees that Luke’s fingers are shiny and silver. Following the direction of Din’s gaze, Luke flexes his cybernetic hand, as if in apology.

‘It used to look more like skin,’ he says. ‘But it…’ He cuts himself off, hesitates for a moment. His pale eyelashes lower and lift. ‘The upkeep got harder.’

Din can’t speak. He takes off his glove and tangles their flesh and metal fingers together.

* * *

Din sleeps with the kid in his arms, snuggled up on a decent-sized mattress somewhere in the Jedi quarters. There’s clean air and stable flooring and a secure path to multiple exits. He’s nowhere near his ship, but he has his jetpack close at hand just in case he needs to make a quick getaway.

He’s roused by a soft knock, distinct but not loud enough to wake the baby, and Din fumbles for his helmet. He doesn’t draw his blaster because he has a vague idea that it might violate some temple code, and because—well, he feels safe here.

The knock comes again. ‘It’s me.’

‘Wait.’ Din puts on his helmet, carefully lowering Grogu onto an undisturbed pillow. He hasn’t got time to suit up completely but he slips on the breastplate, and the shoulder pauldrons, over his comfortable sleeping clothes. Now presentable, Din pitches his voice low. ‘Come in.’

Slim fingers and a rustle of fabric slide around the door as it swings open. Din keeps his palm hovering over Grogu, ready to pat him back into slumber if he stirs, till Luke successfully gets his whole body into the room without making any noise.

‘I’m just doing the rounds,’ Luke explains. ‘We usually sleep in an area with an open floorplan so I don’t disturb anyone by checking on them, but of course you can keep your door shut, you know.’

They both lean over the baby, their heads very close together. Din traces the delicate curve of one ear. ‘He’s fine.’

‘Yes,’ Luke whispers back. ‘He’s dreaming.’

‘About what?’

‘That I don’t know.’ Luke gives Din an impossible moonlit smile. ‘Were _you_ dreaming about something?’

‘No. Yes. Can’t remember,’ Din says. ‘I don’t have the Force… uh, downloaded, or whatever.’

Luke’s smile widens into a huge and breathtaking thing. ‘You can have ordinary dreams, too.’

‘This isn’t an ordinary place.’

‘I’m trying to turn it into a garden,’ Luke confides. They are still speaking in whispers. ‘Not just vegetables, but flowers and fruits too. I haven’t got much time to tend to it with all the younglings on my hands, but I find—’ He bites his lip. ‘I find that things grow beautifully sometimes, if you leave them enough room to breathe.’

Din wonders if everything a Jedi says has to be a metaphor for something else. He is very tired, and has been having a wonderful nap.

‘Go back to sleep,’ Luke murmurs as though he’s read Din’s thoughts, which may also be something a Force-person can do. He touches Din’s hand with cool fingers. ‘I’ll still be here in the morning.’

But Din doesn’t want him to go just yet. He’s noticed how Luke’s gaze wanders and his mouth quirks at nothing. Luke often talks to his ghosts, who seem to talk back. Their conversations evidently bring him comfort. Their voices are heard only by Luke.

Din doesn’t talk to his own ghosts and they don’t speak to him. They are not _unheard_ ; they are simply silent, neither soothing nor distressing. They walk beside him with their unseen faces, not in front, not behind—not guiding, not pursuing him either. He does not tread the path of the Mandalore alone. He walks where their feet fell, and where those after him will walk when he too has fallen. He wades in a river of memories, in the midst of kindred he has never met, with all the survivors and the slain who collectively form the Way.

Instead of goodbye, Din finds himself saying, ‘I need to look for more Mandalorians.’ He turns his face upwards, helmet and all, to look directly at Luke—as if a Jedi could ever understand. ‘The ones who are left.’

Luke sits on the bed beside him. ‘So you’re going back to Mandalore?’

Din closes his eyes; he can’t explain his past to another stranger. He can’t go over this again. ‘I was not raised on Mandalore.’

‘And I was not raised a Jedi,’ Luke says. ‘I, too, know the pain of loss and separation. I knew it for the first time on Tatooine. Then I knew it again and again.’ He puts his hand in Din’s. ‘I will be your family, if you’ll be mine.’

‘Thank you for your offer,’ says Din hoarsely. ‘But I must find others of my kind.’

‘I understand.’ Luke nods, squeezing Din’s hand. ‘May the Force be with you.’

‘This is the Way,’ Din answers. Somehow, it feels like the correct response.

* * *

On the morning of Huttslayer Leia’s arrival, Grogu slips his tiny hand into Din’s and leads him around the entire temple complex to point out his favourite spots. As soon as the Huttslayer has commandeered the younglings and Luke feels like claiming Din’s attention, Luke also takes Din’s hand, leading him towards the ship bays. Din can’t figure out if this habit is a Jedi thing or a specifically Grogu and Luke thing. Based on the utterly feral behaviour of multiple mini-Jedi, he’s leaning towards the latter.

Din’s ship looks even more like a hunk of garbage next to the Huttslayer’s, which is unsurprising. She’s obviously somebody powerful and famous from the Core Worlds, where everyone is rich and arrogant and governed by things like Senates and actual royalty. Din has no interest in their society and they have no interest in his, but he respects the woman enough to painstakingly hide himself from her sight.

‘Are you sure you want to come?’ he asks Luke, who reluctantly lets their hands trail apart. ‘It’s going to be a bumpy ride.’

If Luke had ears like Grogu’s, they’d perk up. ‘I can fly you there! I’m pretty good in an X-wing. I was a pilot at the Battle of—’ A shadow passes over his handsome face, and in the end he just says: ‘I was a pilot.’

Din understands exactly what Luke means. After all, he has his own war memories to keep. Where Luke has blood and battle-glory, Din has his silence and his secret places. His ghosts are neighbourly, unobtrusive; some are living and some are dead. Paz Vizsla, wherever he is. The ones hidden, those born into hiding and those who died where they hid. Din’s parents lying in the dust on Aq Vetina, where their bones have turned to ash and ash to soil and soil to new life.

But this isn’t the time to linger. ‘An X-wing only seats one,’ he reminds Luke with well-earned patience, Grogu-trained. ‘And somehow I don’t think I’d fit on your lap.’

Colour rises in Luke’s cheeks. ‘Okay,’ he agrees, suddenly very docile. ‘We’ll take your ship.’

* * *

Din gets intercepted for multiple traffic violations (understandable) and tries, unsuccessfully, to talk his way out of it. The New Republic X-wings give him a hard time until he has to identify his passenger (Luke the Jedi; species: human; planet of origin: Tatooine), and then the pilots inexplicably let them pass without further comment.

‘What’s so funny?’ Din asks, after they’ve made the jump to hyperspace in perfectly amiable silence.

‘Nothing.’ Luke shakes his fair head, where the brown roots of his hair are beginning to grow out. He touches Din’s hand on the control shift as though he can’t help himself. ‘It’s nice being with you.’

* * *

Din’s helped destroy Imperial bases before. So has Luke. The information Din seeks is guarded by a skeleton crew of security droids, which the two of them quietly dispatch. Luke Force-pulls a droid into Din’s spear and also uses his powers to deflect explosives, which is very nice and courteous of him.

Luke’s cape swishes around his heels as they make their way to the control room. Din’s cape does not, but he figures Luke brings enough theatrics for both of them. He hopes the stormtroopers don’t shoot on sight. He’s hard-pressed to spare them long enough to make them talk, let alone if they attack him first.

With his display unit, Din scans the control room and counts over a dozen lifeforms poised with guns drawn. Some of them shout. Only a locked door stands between Din and several armed stormtroopers. Stepping over the burning remains of droids, Luke retracts his blade and then—unbelievably—raises a hand and knocks.

There’s a stir of resentment behind the metal barrier. ‘We just want to ask you some questions,’ says Luke almost gently. Din shoots him an incredulous glance but doesn’t correct him.

The response comes in a voice of authority and ill-concealed desperation. It contains some choice words that betray the terror behind them.

‘Open the door and let us in,’ says Luke, speaking very slowly with conscious patience. His gloved fingers tap against his hilt. ‘This is your last warning.’

‘There are twenty of us to two of you!’ comes the voice. ‘You’ll never make it out alive!’

Luke swivels his eyes sideways in what Din recognises as slight contempt. Din shrugs in response, so Luke once again extends his laser sword.

A well-timed shot takes care of the security pad, and the door gives way. Luke takes most of the initial fire; Din easily blocks a blaster bolt from an over-ambitious trooper trying to get the drop on a Jedi. Together they clear the room in under three minutes.

By the time they reach the doorway, Din’s hardly sweating and Luke has somehow avoided getting blood on his impeccable boots. The last remaining stormtrooper hits the ceiling and falls to the floor in rapid succession.

Din has a muzzle to the trooper’s helmet before he catches his breath. There’s a coloured pauldron on one shoulder which marks him out as… a sergeant, a troop leader maybe, or whatever Imps call themselves.

‘We’re looking for a Mandalorian,’ says Luke, in the tone you’d use to ask a passing Ugnaught for directions.

‘I’ve not seen any Mandalorians,’ the troop leader protests. ‘What does he look like?’

Din rolls his eyes in tandem with Luke, so he’s grateful that the helmet hides his face. He presses his rifle closer. ‘ _Where is she?_ ’

Luke takes a half-step forward.

‘Long gone,’ hisses the trooper. A bubble of venom rises in that armoured throat. ‘You’ll not be seeing your kind again. We blasted them to smithereens and swept out the filth. And how they _ran_ , wouldn’t you know. Scattered like cockroaches—’

A large dent appears in the stormtrooper’s helmet. He wheezes, chokes on a wail, pleads for mercy; more dents appear, and Din whirls around. Luke has the same expression Grogu wore while strangling Cara, except this trooper isn’t Din’s friend and they’re not arm-wrestling and Luke isn’t as cute.

When Din looks at him, Luke stops crushing the trooper’s skull and placidly drops the still-breathing body to the floor.

Din says: ‘Tell me where to find her.’

They get the intel. The trooper, struggling for breath, begins to touch his own helmet. Judging from his rattling gasps, he doesn’t seem well.

‘We’re leaving him alive?’ Din demands, but Luke is already striding off purposefully so Din doesn’t question the swishy cape.

* * *

They borrow (steal) a hoversled and pick up Grogu before heading to the Armourer’s new home planet. There’s really no need to bring the kid along, but Din has become increasingly uncomfortable with separating him from both his fathers at once.

He knows that love and marriage and children do not typically come in this order. But these aren’t ordinary times. He’s a Mandalorian; they adapt to survive. Their traditions are the product of a simpler, stabler time, when the Way was clear and when they had the luxury of convention. He keeps their traditions as best as he can, just as other living Mandalorians do their best. It’s enough.

Like a child building a model town, he has reproduced in miniature the Mandalorian network of coverts; without planning or even intending to, he has formed his own web of bonds, each node a winking pinpoint of a star somewhere in the galaxy. Cara and Peli and Greef. The Tusken People. Kuiil. Omera. Grogu and Luke. The living and the ageless dead. He cannot carry his pain alone and he cannot carry their pain for them. But they can walk with their burdens side by side, each one shouldering their history, and the fact of their togetherness eases the weight. This is the Way.

Standing outside the ship’s guns locker, he shows Luke the Mandalorian necklace and points out his own signet. ‘The Mudhorn,’ he explains. ‘We are a clan of two.’

Luke (who knows about coming in twos) nods slowly, smiling. Din, his heart impossibly full, feels a fresh groundswell of pride beginning to rise in him. He savours it, treasures the feeling for future times when he’ll need the memory.

‘I’d like you,’ he begins. His throat feels thick. ‘I’d like you to…’

Luke watches him, unblinking.

‘I’d like you to join my clan,’ Din says at last. It’s difficult to get the words out but he finally succeeds. ‘We… If you want. If you…’ He clutches the necklace’s pendant tighter. ‘We’ll make our own family.’

Luke’s eyes go big and luminous. ‘I’d like that very much.’ He, in turn, seems choked up. ‘Thank you for inviting me into your clan, it… it means—’ He stops abruptly, takes Din’s helmet in his hands, and kisses the spot just above the visor where Din’s forehead would be. ‘I will be with you.’

Din puts their foreheads together. He touches Luke’s jaw and then pulls off one glove and brushes his thumb over Luke’s mouth, skin to skin.

They do this sort of thing for a while. ‘You won’t be my _only_ family,’ Luke clarifies quickly, cupping the side of Din’s helmet. ‘I have a twin sister, and at least one brother-in-law. Maybe three?’ His brow furrows in confusion, and then the set of his mouth softens. ‘I had… I had my aunt and uncle. I had a father and a mother once, a long time ago.’

‘So did I. And I had a whole covert. Maybe I still do.’

As if on cue, Grogu wakes with a whimper from some unknown dream. Din scoops him out of the crib and hurriedly takes off his helmet so the baby can pat his chin, his nose. Grogu coos and puts his entire little face against Din’s wet cheek. Luke, respectful even though he saw Din’s face the first time they met, keeps his back turned to give Din privacy.

Din exhales. His hands are trembling. He grips the helmet for some steadiness. Usually the visor masks him, but now he sees that it is a mirror; he sees his reflection in the beskar, his face haggard and resolute.

He doesn’t often think about himself. Grogu can’t tell the difference between handsome and ugly, and Din can’t be bothered to try. He sees his own face all the time—when he shaves, when he cleans his teeth, when he eats and drinks. He doesn’t know how to describe it, or whether he’d even describe it to others. He’s a Mandalorian. It’s his face.

Din swallows hard.

‘Turn around,’ he tells Luke.

* * *

Luke dozes on Din’s shoulder, cuddling the helmet against his chest just as Din, barefaced, cuddles Grogu. When it begins to rain the baby wakes up and fusses, and then Luke wakes up and fusses about mud landing on his boots. Din leaves the two of them to pout and commiserate with each other, and busies himself preparing some rations.

Side by side on the borrowed (stolen) hoversled, Grogu and Din both slurp their pre-mixed soup while Luke gently extracts a tiny worm from Grogu’s balled-up fist. He also checks Grogu’s fingernails, which is very good and helpful and which Din didn’t realise was a thing. As Luke coaxes Grogu out of eating live worms, Din inspects their damp equipment and pulls a covering over the non-beskar stuff to keep out the rain. He comes back to find _Luke_ has eaten the worm. Whatever. Luke’s from Tatooine, his stomach’s probably stronger than the kid’s.

‘Finish your food,’ Din says.

With his left thumb, Luke wipes the corner of Grogu’s mouth. ‘He’s eaten all his soup—look, what a good boy.’

‘I was talking to you.’

A cave halfway up the mountain, once examined, reveals a well-hidden but unmistakable heat signature. Luke pulls up his hood. Din covers the hoversled’s sharp corners with his palm as the kid rolls around, and scans the cave once more to be absolutely sure who’s there.

He trusts the Armourer. She is not rash.

‘Okay,’ Din mutters to himself, and puts his helmet back on. Grogu dozes fitfully in a satchel. Luke kisses his visor. They walk into the cave together.

The Armourer is sitting alone, as she always is. She looks unsurprised to see Din, although a tilt of her head betrays her reaction to Luke. Din quickens his pace as he walks towards her; her body language is open and reassuring, compassionate.

‘Welcome home,’ they both say at the same time. Reunited with one of her own, she seems happy—in her sedate way.

‘Is the foundling safe?’

‘Yes,’ Din says. He lifts the edge of his cape to show her the sleeping child. ‘He is no longer in my care, but he is well cared for.’

‘Then you have fulfilled your quest.’ She inclines her head.

Din breathes a deep sigh of relief. ‘I have learned his name,’ he tells her. ‘Grogu.’

Solemnly, the Armourer accepts this knowledge. ‘We will add his name to our recitations.’

She isn’t using the royal _we_. For Mandalorians, _we_ means the future; it means the past; it means the invisible place where their people stand, a boundless commune of the departed and the unborn.

‘The foundlings are the future,’ Din recites, to show her that he understands. She seems pleased.

Then Luke echoes, ‘The foundlings are the future,’ as if he’s memorising it, and the Armourer turns to look at him when she remembers he’s there.

‘Who is this?’

‘An orphan. A Jedi,’ says Din. The Armourer studies Luke, who gazes back with eyes both ancient and sad. ‘Like us, he rears children from many planets.’

Din doesn’t know how old the Armourer is. Clearly she has forgone the fiery impulses of youth. When she speaks again, her tone is not angry, merely curious. ‘You brought an enemy into our hiding place?’

‘No,’ Din answers swiftly, willing her to understand. Her owlish gaze regards him through her visor. Comforted by her welcome, lulled by her peace, he parrots her original words back to her: ‘His kind were enemies, but this individual is not.’

The Armourer, grave and graceful, acknowledges Din’s echo with a nod of her horned helmet. She remembers the words they exchanged—of course she does. Their shared memories are their future. Without questioning Luke, without challenging Din, she accepts Din’s former part in the conversation as smoothly as a dancer takes his cue. ‘What is he?’ she asks Din.

‘He’s part of my clan.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fellow fennec/bo-katan shippers where you at


	2. The Armourer

When the carnivorous baby begins to fuss, the Jedi extracts him from Din’s satchel and silently swishes his way out of the cave to settle the child. Satisfied that the Jedi boy knows his place, the Armourer seats herself beside her campfire to resume the interview.

‘Have you ever removed your helmet?’

Din audibly gulps. After a long pause he admits, ‘Yes.’

She permits him to explain.

‘I had to do it to get the kid out. And then I had to let him see my face.’ He looks up at her, wide-eyed and earnest. ‘He’s a foundling, just like me.’

‘ _I know_ ,’ replies the Armourer, who was there when Din was adopted. ‘Fear not. You did what you had to do. This is the Way.’

‘This is the Way.’ He puts his hands on his knees like a little boy at lessons. ‘Can I… can I ever put my helmet back on?’

‘You already have,’ says the Armourer, enunciating very clearly with tremendous patience. ‘We live in secrecy because we _must_. Our secrecy was not our choice. Your actions, like the lives of the foundlings, bring us closer to a time when we may no longer need to hide.’

He commits this to memory in awed silence.

‘Have you food for the child?’

‘Yes,’ Din says instantly.

‘Have you food for yourself?’

‘Um.’

The Armourer gets up and bangs some pots and pans together to make her point. As she pours Din a modest portion of passive-aggressive stew, she adds: ‘You will make a new life for your clan. Once the boy has proved himself, I will bestow your signet upon him. He need not be sworn to the Creed.’

Din gently blows on his stew through his helmet. This does not in any way reduce the steam. The Armourer sighs a deep, heartfelt sigh.

‘Take the bowl outside and feed yourself and the others.’

‘Thank you,’ he says, regarding her with untold depths of emotion. She bangs a huge ladle against the grill to release her own feelings.


End file.
